M2M (machine to machine) refers to all techniques and means for establishing connection between machines. The M2M idea has emerged in the 1990s, but only remains at theory stage. After the year of 2000, with the development of the mobile communication technology, it is possible to realize the networking of machinery equipment through the mobile communication technology. M2M services emerge on the market around the year of 2002, and rapidly develop over the following years, which become the focus of attention of multiple communication equipment manufacturers and telecommunication operators. At present, the number of machines around the world is much larger than that of humans, and therefore, the good market prospect of the M2M technique can be contemplated.
The study on the application scenarios of the M2M communication indicates that there is potential market prospect for providing the M2M communication on a mobile network. However, the M2M services provide many new requirements on the system. In order to enhance the competitiveness of the mobile network in this aspect, it is necessary to optimize the existing mobile network, so as to support the M2M communication more effectively.
The existing mobile communications network is mainly designed with respect to interpersonal communication, and the optimization on the machine-to-machine and man-to-machine communication is insufficient. In addition, how to enable the operators to provide the M2M communication services at a low cost is also the key to the successful deployment of the M2M communication.
On the basis of the above-mentioned situations, it is necessary to study a solution for the mobile network to support the M2M communication which can make the maximum reusing of the existing network, and reduce the influence of multiple M2M communications on the network and the complexity of operation maintenance.
At present, the competition of the telecommunication market becomes increasingly fierce, the tariff continually reduces, the profit margin of the operators continually decreases, and the communication market based on humans gets saturated, consequentially, the M2M becomes a brand-new development opportunity for the operators.
In order to use mobile network resources effectively, the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) provides machine type communication (MTC), that is, machine to machine and machine to man communication services. The service scope of the MTC goes far beyond that of the previous human to human (H2H) communication. The MTC is very different from the current H2H communication mode in the aspect of access control, accounting, security, quality of service (QoS), service mode, etc.
In a 3GPP evolved packet system (EPS) architecture, the EPS includes a radio access network (such as a UMTS universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN), an evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN), a GSM/EDGE radio access network (GERAN)) and a core network. For example, there are elements such as a mobility management entity (MME), a serving gateway and a packet data network gateway (PGW) in an evolved packet core (EPC) network; and a GPRS core network includes elements such as a service GPRS support node (SGSN). The E-UTRAN includes an evolved node B (eNB).
MTC device trigger is one of the basic requirements for an MTC system, and this requirement focuses on the following problem: in order to control the communication of the MTC user equipment, the method of initiating a poll by an MTC server can be used to communicate, and for the communication initiated by the MTC user equipment, it also needs to poll data from the MTC user equipment by the MTC server sometimes. If the query of the MTC server fails or the IP address of the MTC user equipment is unavailable, then the MTC server can use the MTC device trigger to establish communication with the MTC user equipment. If a network cannot trigger the MTC user equipment, the network reports to the MTC server that the MTC device trigger fails, and the MTC device trigger is realized in the 3GPP through control plane signalling.
The MTC device trigger includes mobile originated (MO) and mobile terminating (MT) services, that is, includes the MTC user equipment transmitting or receiving information.
In order to realize the effective transmission of an MTC device trigger request, the proposed solutions include: transmitting MTC device trigger information through T4 interface, or transmitting the MTC device trigger information through T5 interface control plane signalling, or transmitting the MTC device trigger information through a Gi/SGi interface user plane. As regards the method for transmitting the MTC device trigger information through the control plane signalling, an MTC server transmits the control plane signalling containing the MTC device trigger information to a network node; and the network node performs parsing processing on the MTC device trigger information in the control plane signalling, and then transmits the MTC device trigger information to user equipment (UE). The MTC architecture in the 3GPP is as shown in FIG. 1. In the user plane, an MTC application connecting an MTC user communicates with the MTC server through an application programming interface (API), or directly communicates with a gateway GPRS support node (GGSN)/PGW/evolved packet data gateway (EPDG) in the 3GPP network through a Gi/SGi interface; the MTC server communicates with the GGSN/PGW/EPDG through an MTCi interface; and the GGSN/PGW/EPDG communicates with user equipment through a radio access network (RAN). In the control plane, the MTC server transmits the control plane signalling containing the MTC device trigger information to an MTC inter working function (MTC-IWF) through an MTCsp interface or transmits the control plane signalling containing the MTC device trigger information to a short message service-service centre (SMS-SC)/IP-short-message-gateway (IP-SM-GW) through an MTCsms interface, and the MTC-IWF or the SMS-SC/IP-SM-GW transmits the control plane signalling to an MME/SGSN or gateway MSC for short message service (SMS-GMSC) or an SMS router or a mobile-services switching centre (MSC) or a visitor location register (VLR) and then transmits same to the UE through the RAN, wherein the MME/SGSN may also obtain the control plane signalling from a home subscriber server (HSS) or a home location register (HLR) through a Gr/S6a/S6d interface.
The demands for grouping MTC user equipment is proposed in 3GPP TS22.368, for example, the MTC server may want to collect the status information about multiple pieces of MTC user equipment. The system may associate one piece of MTC user equipment to a single MTC group; each group-based MTC function is applicable to each member of an MTC group; and the identity of the MTC group is unique in the 3GPP network.
Paging is to indicate an MT information request or a system information modification to target user equipment, and the target UE receiving the paging information establishes a connection with a network side or reads the modified system information according to the indication of the paging information. The scope of the paging is usually a registration region of the UE, and the paging is usually transmitted at a particular time, wherein the particular time is obtained by the calculation according to the UE identity, and therefore, each UE has its corresponding paging time. An idle state or connection state UE monitors the paging at a paging time thereof.
Triggering one group of MTC UE belongs to an MT process, and before a target MTC UE receives the trigger information, the network side needs to page the UE, and the MTC UE receiving the paging further reads the trigger information.
In the related art, there is no solution of how to page one group of MTC user equipment.